Emma Lovell Yoga

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My bones are mountains.
My tears, rushing rivers.
The earth’s crust is my skin.
Trees adorn my head.
The sun, moon, and stars
Are in my eyes.
The ether of the Universe is my breath.
Separateness is an illusion.
I am all things and all things are me.

Anya Phenix




Everything is connected

I thoroughly recommend watching this film.

‘Home is a 2009 documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The film is almost entirely composed of aerial shots of various places on Earth. It shows the diversity of life on Earth and how humanity is threatening the ecological balance of the planet.’

Here’s the trailer:

You can view the full film here

 




The long body

‘The long body is a Native American term which refers to the individual body plus the life support systems around it. It is a much bigger conception of the human body than we have in western culture, and considers the body continuous with the larger environment.’

I’ve been working my way through the excellent Liberated Body podcasts.  This is one of my favourites so far- Frank Forencich talks about the importance of slowing down, getting outside, and putting down the phone.  Here’s the podcast and here’s Frank’s article Habitat is Tissue.




‘ It is not until you become physically aware of how your own health is entirely reliant on the health of the great web of life, that ideas such as deep ecology absorb themselves into your arteries, sinews and bones.

If the air that filled my lungs became polluted, if the nutrients in the soil that produced my food became depleted, or if the spring water which made up 60% of my body became poisoned, my own health would suffer accordingly. This seems like common sense, but you wouldn’t think so by observing the way we treat the natural world today. Over time, even the boundaries of what I considered to be “I” became less and less clear.’   taken from ‘Living without money: What I learned’ by Mark Boyle, aka ‘the Moneyless Man’.  Full article here




‘In the first movement, our infancy as a species, we felt no separation from the natural world around us. Trees, rocks, and plants surrounded us with a living presence as intimate and pulsing as our own bodies. In that primal intimacy, which anthropologists call “participation mystique,” we were as one with our world as a child in the mother’s womb.

Then self-consciousness arose and gave us distance on our world. We needed that distance in order to make decisions and strategies, in order to measure, judge and to monitor our judgments. With the emergence of free-will, the fall out of the Garden of Eden, the second movement began — the lonely and heroic journey of the ego. Nowadays, yearning to reclaim a sense of wholeness, some of us tend to disparage that movement of separation from nature, but it brought us great gains for which we can be grateful. The distanced and observing eye brought us tools of science, and a priceless view of the vast, orderly intricacy of our world. The recognition of our individuality brought us trial by jury and the Bill of Rights.

Now, harvesting these gains, we are ready to return. The third movement begins. Having gained distance and sophistication of perception, we can turn and recognize who we have been all along. Now it can dawn on us: we are our world knowing itself. We can relinquish our separateness. We can come home again — and participate in our world in a richer, more responsible and poignantly beautiful way than before, in our infancy.’  Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self

Rose window , Erin Case via here

 

 




Emotions, back pain, yoga

We’ve been looking at the low back this week in class, exploring how limited mobility in certain areas of the body can affect other areas of hyper-mobility, especially with regards to the low back: ‘the body’s natural tendency is to continually move in the places where motion is already easy’.  Here’s a great article by Jenni Rawlings explaining this, with a few helpful tips when back bending.

Another interesting watch is this video from Leslie Kaminoff looking at the relationship between emotions, back pain and yoga: ‘Emotional suppression does not occur in a physical vacuum, you do it with your body, and your body is where you’re feeling the pain.’


Found here




Posted on by Emma

‘Unfortunately, the extensive moralizing within the ecological movement has given the public the false impression that they are being asked to make a sacrifice- to show more responsibility, more concern, and a nicer moral standard.  But all that would flow naturally and easily if the self were widened and deepened so that the protection of nature was felt and perceived as protection of our very selves.’  Arne Naess